Thursday, November 30, 2006

Blue Eyes?

We are less than a month away from the due date, assuming he isn't running late. Our impending parenthood has made me curious about my genetic background. Since I am adopted, I don't have full access to my ancestry, and even the simple things like my relatives' eye and hair color are clouded in mystery. I have met my birth mother on two occasions, and met a few of my half-siblings, but I have never met any grandparents. My birth mother has been rather evasive about discussing the paternal side of my history, and I haven't pushed things, so I really only have half the story.

The other night I phoned my birth mother to ask her some questions about her background. Her grand-parentage was 3/4ths of Italian ancestry. Her maternal grandfather immigrated from Italy to Chicago as a young man. Everyone had wild last names ending in vowels. She herself has very dark features, so I found it very surprising that my maternal grandfather had blond hair and blue eyes. On my wife's side, Lise's family probably has over a thousand years of blue-eyed genes in their bloodline. Oddly, this will put our son's odds of having blue eyes and no worse than a one out of four chance. That takes into account no possibility of there being any blue eyes on the paternal side of my genetics. If either of my genetic father's parents had blue eyes, the odds double to a 50% possibility of our son having blue eyes. I would have never imagined it was even possible that I could end up with a blue eyed child. Of course, it will take months to find out what his permanent eye color is.

No comments: